DEMJ5104_nothing_to_fear_report_140217_WEBv1

Conclusions 3 Germany

Conclusions 3 Germany Using the latest assessments of public opinion in Germany, in particular the contradiction between positive pragmatic evaluations of Germany’s membership in the EU and the drastic decline in the image of EU as an institution, we can speculate on what might happen to German public opinion in the coming months. Among a range of possibilities, two alternative scenarios stand out: ·· Scenario 1: The EU’s image will bounce back to match the previous, rather low levels of Euroscepticism. This would suggest that the recent drastic decline in the perception of the EU among the German public was merely a temporary dip that could have been caused by citizens’ projections of generalised fear and insecurity onto the EU, which were particularly pronounced at the time of our research (summer 2016). ·· Scenario 2: The German public will become more Eurosceptic, also in their pragmatic evaluations of the country’s structural position within the EU, or make more vehement demands for German politicians to drive EU reform. The former would involve some citizens changing their views on Germany’s long-term strategy in the EU (advocating for Germany to leave the EU or to work towards reducing the EU’s power). The latter would put significant pressure on German politicians to put forth concrete ideas for EU reform. Our analysis indicates that there are concrete and distinct reasons why citizens in Germany hold a negative image of the EU: we find no evidence of them having a generalised, abstract feeling of fear. Overall, the majority of citizens hold distinguishable concerns, suggesting that we cannot speak about EU fears in the aggregate. What is more: we find that citizens’ apprehensions are directly related to their perception

211 of Germany’s future strategy in the EU. This is reason to believe that the German public do not simply project a generalised feeling of insecurity onto the EU as an institutional scapegoat. Instead, they hold genuine concerns, which – if they remain unaddressed by politicians – may induce German people to become more Eurosceptic or to demand concrete measures of EU reform. However, political elites perceive fears in Germany to be largely generalised, abstract or unrelated to evaluations of the EU, which is not borne out by our analysis. While we find citizens’ concerns to depend on both pragmatic economic considerations and emotive (latent) variables such as the degree of national and European identification, politicians focus on pragmatic economic aspects. They underestimate the impact of identity for the German public. Given this gap in understanding of fears between the public and political elites in Germany, it is not surprising that politicians have difficulty in addressing citizens’ concerns over the EU. Although all politicians recognise their particular responsibility to address citizens’ concerns, the measures they suggest to alleviate those that are EU-related are largely one-dimensional. Politicians realise that representation is crucial for the EU’s legitimacy and acknowledge that many citizens believe the EU currently lacks input as well as output legitimacy. However, they struggle to think of measures that specifically address output legitimacy and use various different ways to improve the EU’s problem-solving capacity (through reform of the EU or through national political institutions). Concrete suggestions increase input legitimacy directly at the EU level: they typically revolve around explaining the EU’s procedures and encouraging identification with the EU. Suggestions for EU reform are rarely mentioned. Should the German public indeed become more Eurosceptic overall and should German politicians come under pressure to offer concrete measures for EU reform over the next months, their difficulty with exactly this task poses a major problem for German political institutions as well as the EU as a whole. The EU’s capacity to offer solutions to current crises and future challenges is key to addressing citizens’